Last week and this week my classes drew a class snowman. I had students take turns drawing parts of the snowman. Then we made up a little "story" about our snowman. We voted on a name and then in groups the students had to decide what pet their snowman has, what was its favorite food and drink, and they had to describe a physical characteristic and one article of clothing.

Mrs. Powell and I were lucky enough to meet with a teacher at Crestline Elementary school in Mountain Brook this summer before school started. This teacher has been teaching elementary Spanish for several years and she does a fabulous job. One of the things she advised us to do was to let our students direct our lessons rather than always rigidly adhering to our lesson plans. I thought of her advice today in one class as I put off part of my lesson to allow students to share their silly sentences about snowmen.Some of the silly sentences were...The snowman has pink. El hombre de nieve tiene rosa.The snowman has red. El hombre de nieve tiene rojo.The snowman has water. El hombre de nieve tiene agua.The snowman has chocolate. El hombre de nieve tiene chocolate.The snowman has the snowman. El hombre de nieve tiene el hombre de nieve.The snowman has pizza. El hombre de nieve tiene la pizza.The snowman has the strawberry. El hombre de nieve tiene la fresa.The snowman has the milk. El hombre de nieve tiene la leche.The snowman has the hat. El hombre de nieve tiene el sombrero.They were so excited and they all wanted to share their sentences. It was great!